Under My Roof
by TriedItAtHome
Summary: The rooftop. It was really Crutchie's roof, as his parents paid the rent on the large historic house, but to anybody who knew anything, it was Jack's penthouse. Many an afternoon had been spent on this particular roof by the two best friends. To Jack, this night was just going to be another normal night between him and his best friend. Except... not quite so normally.(JackCrutchie)


**Oh, look. I wrote a thing. Well, I don't have a lot to say here... other than that I _am_ working on two Jack/Katherine things (or Lambcuddles, cause that's actually there ship name) and they'll get around to being here soon. Goodbye now, lovelies, please enjoy my tired attempted rambling of a story. (Ah, no, I think you'll like it. Just give it a chance) YES! NOW go read.**

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><p><strong>Under My Roof<strong>

The first thing anybody ever says about the house is either "It's beautiful" or "It's enormous!" and then after either of these the next question is guaranteed to be "When was it built?" upon which whoever is giving the tour, be it Mr. Morris, Mrs. Morris, or Charlie "Crutchie" Morris, will always answer "1893". Sometimes, if the guest is a lucky one and the host actually enjoys their company or even just wants to show off a small bit of knowledge about history, they'll answer more along the lines of: "It was designed for an importer of rare books by an architect named William Schickel in 1893, and it's been renovated seven times, all of them minor things though one of the recent ones did include an elevator, and so this old brick mansion has managed to hold it's ground on the corner of this street for 121 years. Would you care to see the libraries?"

But only if they really like the guests. Otherwise simply "1893" will suffice.

But regardless of the conversations that happen regarding the house, it really is quite beautiful. Mr. and Mrs. Morris were very lucky to obtain it in the first place, seeing as how they won it in an auction when Mrs. Morris was still pregnant with the couple's first child. Charlie had lived here his whole life.

He brought his best friends to this house when he was six (Jack Kelly, "Racetrack" Higgins, and David Jacobs), but only his best friends who he knew wouldn't flaunt his family's wealth to the other kids at school.

His first broken arm happened here, when he tried to climb the magnolia tree beside the house and fell, being the clumsy seven-year-old he was.

It was this house that was witness to his jumping around in excitement on his eighth birthday when his parents announced they were going to be adopting a dog and he could pick it out and it would be his.

His terrible accident involving a car and a trip to the emergency room and eventually a crutch for his destroyed leg happened just at the end of the driveway, when he was nine.

Then, of course, there was the rooftop. It was a sort of a top floor, but the only way to get to it was through a trapdoor with a built-in ladder that was, coincidentally, right at the back end of Crutchie's room. Up the ladder, through the door, onto the flat rooftop that was cut off from a deathly fall four stories down by a beautifully shaped brass railing and four castle-like towers on each of the rooftop's four corners.

It was really Crutchie's roof, as his parents paid the rent on the large historic house, but to anybody who knew anything, it was Jack's penthouse. Many an afternoon had been spent on this particular roof by the two best friends. From when they were just kids playing pirates, up until they were "wiser" teenagers having actual conversation, far too deep conversations to be held or spoken of anywhere else other than here. Here beside the looming magnolia tree and under a dark blanket of stars where they couldn't see each others faces by anything but eerie moonlight.

This night was a warm one, right at the beginning of spring where the leaves begin to return to trees and kids get excited about the potential to be the first in the city to spot an American Robin. Jack had come over at six, rapped on the door in his usual pattern, and had graciously accepted Mrs. Morris's offer to stay for dinner. After the two boys had sufficiently stuffed themselves with roasted chicken and buttered mashed potatoes, they excused themselves from the table and to the kitchen, where they snuck away to the elevator with two tubs of ice cream under their shirts.

And so once again, they find themselves on the rooftop, as they normally do. Except… maybe not quite normally.

To Jack, this night was just going to be another one of those nights, talking to his best friend without worry. Maybe, if he had been paying a bit more attention to things, he might have noticed something in the air, a certain tension between the two there hadn't been before, this look in Crutchie's eyes that should have spoken louder than his words of joy and delight. Something sad.

Crutchie's phone lay on his stomach, the speakers smothered in his shirt and the music echoing off a shallow dip between two jutting ribs. The soft seventies rock Jack so enjoyed provided a quiet soundtrack to their conversation.

"So it's this party, right, over at Race's house to celebrate Henry's birthday. A surprise."

"I remember it, Jack, I was there."

"Right, well you weren't there for this! It was Race, Smalls, Albert, Finch, Romeo and I all sittin' in a circle and we're tellin' stupid jokes as we play some game or another, I don't remember which one, but then Albert, _Albert _is the one who says..."

He just kept talking, and talking, and talking, and sometimes Crutchie would input shortly and sometimes he wouldn't be able to get anything out at all.

He watched Jack talk, the way his lips moved and how he took shallow breaths between his sentences and a couple of deeper ones when he started a new idea. The way a tiny little dimple showed up when he smiled, or the way premature laugh lines wrinkled at the corners of his eyes. To Crutchie, he was beautiful, and he knew that for all the egotistical things he said, Jack couldn't ever see himself as Crutchie saw him. After all these years of silently watching and marvelling and comforting in hard times and _loving him_… Oh, how Crutchie wished Jack would see himself through other eyes.

Jack turned towards him, the first time since he started talking earlier. "What'da ya think, Crutchie?"

He swallowed thickly, eyes flicking between Jack's. He hadn't heard the question or the scenario or whatever it was Jack was asking him about, but he probably wouldn't have given a helpful answer anyway. All he could do was look away. Jack watched him as he sat up, hauled his crutch up beside him and stood without help, then went to the edge of the roof to grip the railing and look over the edge, down into the yard. He leaned his crutch against the railing and hung his head. Just the picture of him there, from any angle, was the very image of gloom.

"Crutchie? What's the matter? Was it something I said?"

He shook his head, not looking but hearing Jack begin to sit up slowly behind him. "No. I'm sorry, Jack. It's nothing. Just not feeling great."

Jack stood. "Nah-uh. Don't gove me any of that bullshit. We've been friends since kindergarten. You know I can see right through you."

Then his hand was on Crutchie's shoulder. And he flinched away. He hadn't heard Jack move toward him, or he might have been able to steel himself for the other boy's touch, but it came as a surprise.

"Well obviously you can't, Jack, cause I'm dying inside cause I think you're wonderful and amazing but you can't ever see you the way _I_ see you, it's killing me, and you don't even seem to take a hint!"

The silence between them physically hurt, and the distance between them from Crutchie's flinch seemed a canyon wide. He tried not to focus on the music, but it was just loud enough from where he'd left his phone on the ground that he could hear it and had to continue to listen...

He wanted nothing more than to smash the glass screen and the thin aluminum backing until not another peep of sound could escape ever again.

"What do you want me to do, Crutch?"

He tried to pull his head closer to his neck, imagining he looked something rather akin to a turtle, though failed miserably to acheive.

"I should get back to bed. I've got school tomorrow..."

"Crutchie!" He ducked his head at Jack's shout, turned his whole self as far away from Jack as possible and tried to shrink, shrink, shrink until he was the size of a dust mite. "Crutchie..." His name was a whisper now, so soft and gentle and delicate Crutchie felt sorry for ever saying anything at all.

He flinched again, when Jack's hand came into contact with his shoulder, tensed up a little more, but Jack waited for just one moment before persistantly setting his hand back in the same place again. This time, Crutchie didn't move away, and every muscle Jack's hand touched it moved over from Crutchie's shoulder blade to his upper arm to his elbow and down to the tips of his fingers began to relax, until not an inch of him could find the energy to be tense at all. Jack's front was pressed right up against Crutchie's back, strong arms wrapped around his chest, a dull moonlight washing both of them in a pale haze.

"You gotta stay strong, Crutch." Jack's voice came right beside his ear, his breath warm on the skin of his neck. "For me."

"What's the point?"

"Not drowning. Sometimes it just feels like drowning, don't it? But then if you stay strong, then the point is you not dying, me not dying. We both gotta live, don't we?"

He started to feel tense all over again, only Jack's arms and breath and lips brushing his ear keeping him from taking to turtle form again. "But I don't think I can... Not without... If I don't have..."

"Me?"

Crutchie could not only feel but hear Jack's smirk, and just about banished him for good right then and there because this was not a smirking matter. But he couldn't find the strength, couldn't force himself to move, so it was Jack who turned him around, arms still tightly around him but now settled on his lower back, and Crutchie saw that that smirk had melted into a real, genuine smile, something not often seen by many others on the face of Jack Kelly.

He fisted his hands into Jack's t-shirt at his chest, leaning back just a little for some distance, but Jack followed, not letting him shrink away on him again.

"Don't think I can live without you," Crutchie said to clarify his stuttering and Jack's inference.

Their lips just an inch apart, almost close enough to brush together, Jack said, "Two-way street, then, cause I don't think I can live without you either."

Their kiss was sweet and probably very short, but to Crutchie it lasted a lightyear and it sent twinkle-feelings all the way down the tips of his toes, just this little press of Jack's lips. Jack pulled away first, didn't go far, and the feeling remained.

"You know, it's in times like this that Winnie the Pooh comes to me speaking words of great wisdom. 'You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.'"

Crutchie laughed, his first of the night, both of them realized, though neither said anything of it (almost as though they could both pretend it didn't matter anymore, not after everything).

"I think I love you, Jack." It took him a little by surprise, these words, took both of them by surprise, but he went on anyway. "I might not in twenty years, or maybe even ten, but for today and tomorrow and the day after that, I love you."

"For today, tomorrow, and _two_ days after that, I think I love you, too."

They kissed again, kissed twice more, and then they stopped counting and simply _existed together _as the world turned.


End file.
